SBJ Morning Buzzcast
SBJ Morning Buzzcast: July 15, 2024
A pretty, pretty good weekend for Spain as their men's national team won their record fourth Euro championship with a win over England and boy. It was easy to feel for England as their nearly 60-year drought without a major trophy continues. Meanwhile, I was hoping for a far closer Wimbledon final on the men's side, but it shows just how strong a player Carlos Alvarez is as he thoroughly dominated Novak Djokovic in three sets to win his second consecutive Wimbledon title and while some of the points were fantastic, it was clear that Carlos Alvarez was just playing on a different level on Sunday. And this is your morning buzzcast for Monday, July 15th. Good morning. I made Mancore. The news headline of the local morning show I was just watching was "More Copa Chaos." And let's hope soccer organizers fully assess what's gone wrong with the Copa security and that FIFA works with US leaders to make sure we do not have this issue in 2026, yes, just two short years away. While Argentina defeated Colombia in the Copa final Sunday night in Miami, the match was delayed more than an hour because of crowd issues, including fans breaching security gates. This comes after what happened in Charlotte on Wednesday night with players rushing into the stands because they feared for their family safety. Yesterday in SBJ's weekend wrap, we noted that security was going to be so tight in Miami that people were warned not even to get close to Hard Rock Stadium in Miami if they didn't have a ticket. But that didn't seem to resonate. As before the match, fans got past the gates at Hard Rock Stadium, video show fans jumping over security railings of the stadium and running past police officers and stadium attendance. Now officers were able to push the crowd behind the gates and lock down the entrance. But the images are disconcerting. There was easily a safety issue and people certainly feared for their security and safety. So Hard Rock Stadium works with Comable and CONCACAF and local law enforcement agencies around the final. And security was said to be so ramped up that the increase in security was more than double for a regular event. But it was still not enough to prevent this and there was a sellout crowd of more than 65,000. But again, the bottom line is this COPA America tournament was really a mixed bag for organizers. There were security issues. There were complaints about playing pitches. There were complaints about training facilities. There were concerns about slow ticket sales. Now I know it's different when FIFA comes to town and when FIFA runs an event. But this was not the best dress rehearsal for the World Cup and we know how much emphasis is being placed on the 2026 World Cup to bolster the sport of soccer especially in America. They cannot have these types of issues or that tournament will never reach its potential. So again, there'll be more on this fall out over the next couple of weeks. But this story will certainly be talked about a lot and discussed a lot in soccer circles. Let's move on. A very big week for Major League Baseball with its all-star game in Arlington, Texas. SBJ has a couple of people on the ground, Joe Lemire and Terry left in. So if you're in Arlington, try to say hello. On Friday, SBJ ran the most popular jerseys for the first half of the season. Probably no surprise that Shohei Otani led in jersey sales. His number 17 uniform ranking number one. Remember, Otani's Angels jersey finished 2023 atop the list as well. Here's an interesting stat. Bryce Harper has the number two most popular jersey so far this season. He returned to the rankings after finishing outside the top 20 a year ago. Aaron Judge of the Yankees is third, showing which teams have a lot of support. The Dodgers have three of the top 20 spots with Otani, Mookie Betz and Freddy Freeman while the Yankees, Phillies, Mets, Padres, Braves and Blue Jays all have two players apiece. And of course, L.A. Della Cruz of the Reds and Adley Rushman of the Orioles both moved up a few spots after debuting on the jersey sales list in 2023. So again, I'll go over your top five, Otani, Harper, Judge, Betz and Akuna. Those are your top five in terms of jersey sellers so far in MLB this season, a big week for baseball with the All-Star game and the Home Run Derby, Home Run Derby tonight Monday, All-Star Game Tuesday from Texas. You know, Caitlin Clark, she is a revenue driver. As the fever and Clark played the Minnesota links on Sunday, it was her first visit to Minnesota and a crowd of just under 19,000. Yes, the biggest in Minnesota links regular season history came out to watch the game and the links have a very successful franchise. So for this to be the most attended regular season game in teams history says something. The game also marked the single biggest revenue day on gate sales in links history. It was the first time ticket revenue exceeded a million dollars for that team. And so you see how Caitlin Clark is driving the top line of the WNBA. And this is a great example. Meanwhile, Greg Sankey will meet the media today on Monday as the SEC media days begin in Dallas. They'll run this week. Dallas is the epicenter of a lot of things this week between All-Star Game and SEC media days. The SEC held its media days last year in Nashville. They've also held them before in Atlanta. And now Dallas, Sankey will announce today where next year's media days will take place. And again, it makes sense to have them in Dallas with Oklahoma and Texas officially joining the SEC on July 1st. But these media days are a big economic revenue driver. There are a lot of attention for the city and the SEC. And so the Omni Hotel in Dallas is where all the action will happen for the SEC this week. You know, a potentially big week for the Oakland A's as the team's development agreement is on the agenda this Thursday for the Las Vegas Stadium Authority. They have a meeting on Thursday and this development agreement will break down how the A's ballpark will be financed and the construction plan for the 33,000 seat stadium to be built on the Tropicana site. And this would be a major step to putting shovels in the ground for the new ballpark. So this is a big meeting on Thursday because there have been a lot of questions about this development plan. Meanwhile, something else to watch with the A's in terms of their plan to play in Sacramento before relocating to Las Vegas. The MLBPA is asking the commissioner's office to see if morning games in Sacramento should be an option when the A's move because of the sweltering heat in the city. The average high temperature in Sacramento was over 107 degrees for the first 12 days of July, over 107 degrees. And so the independent Pioneer League, that team in that market moved the start time of some of their games to 10 a.m. because of the heat. So overall, the union also expressed frustration that the logistics for the Sacramento move for the A's has not been finalized. They said that players are frustrated that they don't know more details. So this is certainly an issue to watch. But of course, going back to the heat, the Sacramento Rivercats have played for years in this market. And I don't recall any indication that they have moved game times over the years. But the weather in Sacramento, obviously a cause of concern for MLB's Players Association. Speaking of a cause for concern, one other one, NASCAR driver Danny Hamlin continues to be concerned about the pace of negotiations for a new charter system. As he said, it's July, and NASCAR's charter system expires at the end of this year. And Hamlin sounded another dire warning about the relationship between NASCAR and its teams. He expressed frustration with negotiations, saying that there have been no negotiation. He also stated that every proposal, NASCAR has sent back to the teams is worse than the previous one. And so he says negotiations are actually worse off today than they were two years ago. And here we are just a few months away, well not a few, but about eight months away from the next Daytona 500 and there may not be a charter agreement. He went on to say that all NASCAR teams are asking for is for NASCAR to cover the cost of racing and that the answer has been "repeatedly no" end quote. And so why is all this important? Well it shows that after years of negotiations, NASCAR and the teams do not seem much closer to a charter agreement. And the relationship seems so tense and fraught right now that it's not healthy at all for the long term success of the sport. Like I said, here it is July, I thought we'd have a charter agreement, but certainly by now negotiations continue and from Danny Hamlin's side, they are not going much better. So obviously a story we all need to continue to watch. And so that is your morning buzzcast for Monday, July 15th, I made Mancour, thanks for listening to the buzzcast. Stay healthy, be good to each other, I'll speak to you on Tuesday. [Music]